Do you drive your car without wearing seatbelts? Of course, you can drive your car! But, when something bad comes ahead, there will be no way to protect yourself and your valuables. Same is the case with antivirus software. You will be able to use your computer without installing an antivirus suite. But, when a threat infects your device, you’ll have nothing to do about it. And, spending a few dollars on premium antivirus programs isn’t reasonable for everyone. At the same time, it doesn’t mean that you should go protection-less. Free antivirus programs can help you a lot in such scenarios.

Even then, it’s not wise to go for some random free antivirus software. It’s so because free antivirus tools are used as a medium for frauds and all. To help you with selection, however, we’ve created a list of best 3 antivirus programs you can get. All these are from established software developers and you can count on them for basic protection.

Windows Defender

If you are using Microsoft Windows 8 or later versions, you don’t need third-party antivirus for basic protection. Such a basic protection layer has been included in the Operating System itself, namely Windows Defender. It was known as Microsoft Security Essentials earlier, and was integrated into the Windows OS, starting from Windows 8 release. If you are still running Windows 7, you can download the free tool under the name MSE. Various reviews of Windows Defender are saying that it is good for basic users but not so advanced one. Talking of Windows Defender Antivirus suite, it’s meant to protect your PC from different types of malware and viruses out there.

Thanks to the OS level integration, Windows Defender can go deep into your device for protection. In addition to these, you can have browser-based protection in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. The downloaded files will be thoroughly scanned for threats. Another feature of Windows Defender is its realtime protection —your PC will be regularly scanned for finding threats as they arise. Altogether, if you are not much into advanced PC usage, Windows Defender would be an adept choice. It’s free and gets disabled when you install a third-party antivirus suite.

Bitdefender Free Antivirus

Bitdefender is one of the top developers when it comes to premium security solutions. Quite fortunately, it offers an impressive, fully-functional and lightweight free antivirus protection. Despite the fact that Bitdefender products are comparatively cheap, this one is apt when you don’t want to spend anything at all. Unlike most of the free antivirus solutions around, Bitdefender Free Antivirus does not have annoying advertisements or those pop-ups. Moreover, it has been well optimized to run well on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 devices around. Obviously, this free antivirus is offering a bunch of useful features.

On top of everything, Bitdefender Free Antivirus has a Real-time Shield for non-delayed protection from threats. So, even before the threat gets into your device, it can be wiped off. Also, there is Active Virus Control, which is quite an impressive thing when it comes to virus. Other notable features in Bitdefender Free Antivirus include B-Have, which is for analyzing particular apps based on behavior, HTTP Scanning and Anti-Rootkit protection. To enhance overall protection, Bitdefender has also added Early Boot Scanning and Automated Scanning. You can use the free version of Bitdefender in your computer for a while. If you think this is really worth after the sufficient usage, you can the paid version such as Bitdefender Total Security at a reasonable price from the official website or any reseller.

Avast Free Antivirus

Avast Free Antivirus is yet another option when you need an antivirus suite that doesn’t cost you much. Just like the other products from the developer, this one too has a minimalist design and interface. Also, Avast has managed to keep the memory footprint and consumption as low as possible. Altogether, you won’t really sense the presence of this antivirus product, in terms of resource consumption. It needs to be noted that the installation procedure of this free tool is equally simple as well. So, you won’t have trouble when it comes to setting it up in your device.

Coming to the features, Avast Free Antivirus has a lot to offer. On top of everything, Avast’s global network for virus-based research is perfect. It makes sure that no threat is exempted from the target list. The most important feature in Avast Antivirus is the SmartScan feature, which helps you perform an enhanced scan. There are additional options to protect your home network from threats, clean hijacked browsers and an in-built password manager. In case if it’s necessary, you can use the software updater too.

Wrapping Up

So, these are the best three free antivirus tools you can go for! We don’t recommend sticking onto these for long. In spite of that, one of the tools would be enough for basic protection from common threats. When you start exposing PC to more threats, you should think of opting for a premium antivirus suite.